Man-Kzin Wars 9

by Larry Niven

  The insurgent humans were no longer fighting, as the ferals had in the old hill campaigns, with an assortment of makeshift and captured weapons. Though the Wunderlanders were increasingly running riot, and Markham and other feral leaders were said to have landed from space, more and more of the human infantry were regular UNSN troops with heavy battlefield weapons, armored vehicles and plentiful air support.

  In its last major battle, their own regiment had gone in almost entirely on foot, its transport destroyed by air attacks. These few had survived by chance, and by Hroarh-Captain’s decision, when command had recently devolved upon him, to keep a small garrison of the least battle-fit at the monastery to protect what civilians and loyal humans they might. Hroarh-Captain was probably the regiment’s last surviving officer: kzinti officers always led their Heroes into attack, and the UNSN had been pouring in supplies of precision-guided weapons.

  A few traces of the room’s brief service as a Mess were still to be seen. There were the accumulated battle trophies of years—rings of dried kzinti and human ears donated by famous Heroes, stuffed humans and pieces of humans who had put up memorable fights, and bits of armor and weapons, various skins, the wtsai of old Krawth-Sergeant mounted in a translucent block, a silver-inlaid jar of Chuut-Riit’s urine, presented after the second battle of the Hohe Kalkstein, the drum. Dried Morlock heads from the great caves like fanged brainless parodies of men. A mural on one wall showed a Hero rampant, locked in battle with a troop of humanoid monsters, hind claws dug into a heap of simian corpses.

  There were even two live humans—the Mess-slaves, shivering and terrified.

  There were still distant sounds of bells and battle here. No business of ours, Hroarh-Captain had said. The ancient walls of the monastery were thick, but pierced as they were by many doors and windows, and damaged further in the recent fighting, they made a poor defensive position. There was no point in thinking about that. There was, Raargh-Sergeant thought, little point in thinking about anything. Thought might too easily lead to despair, madness and the neglect of Duty.

  He signaled a slave—a servant—to bring him his usual bourbon-and-tuna ice cream, but knew he must resist the temptation to drink himself into oblivion.

  There was no power for the Mess television—not that many had wanted electronic entertainment there anyway—and the official communications channels seemed to be blocked or disabled, but he felt he should see what was happening.

  He crossed the courtyard, signing to the human guards that they need not prostrate, and headed down the crooked alley running between the straggle of huts outside, one of which advertised itself as an internet cafe.

  The monastery was situated in rolling meadowland, high on the lip of an ancient meteor crater. Once the humans had raised herbivorous animals on its pastures and vegetables in its gardens, but in recent years, until the Patriarchy had commandeered it, a great straggle of refugee huts had grown up about its walls and fences. These were burning in several places now, and with the heaps of wreckage and refuse and with the smoke of their burning mingling with the smoke drifting from the burning city it was hard to see far.

  Any live humans around kept well out of sight. A pair of dead ones lay by a stoop, fluffy white Beam’s Beasts already cuddling into them. The blue-eyed, poisoned-fanged vermin had been multiplying in and under the maze of human shanties. Greasy patches nearby littered with acid-corroded bone fragments showed they had been busy for more time.

  The internet cafe itself was an older, more substantial and cleaner building, one of the original monastery outbuildings, standing on a slight rise of ground.

  As he entered the cafe he was glad, not for the first time, that the mealy smell of humans was odd rather than repulsive, for it was strong here, but in any case he took it for granted now.

  The cafe, he noticed with some surprise, for he had not entered it before, had both human and kzin-sized chairs and keyboards which combined human letters and the claw-mark-derived Kzinti alphabet, with layouts for either five small thin or four short massive fingers, though several of the chairs were overturned and the building itself was empty.

  Kzin warriors and Heroes would never deign to mix with monkeys on such terms, even if they made pets of certain individuals, but not all kzinti were warriors and Heroes, especially not some of those who cared for thinking machines. Perhaps, he realized, some kzin Nirrrds had come here and mixed with monkeys to escape the casual persecution (which could be lethal) of fighting Kzin.

  The Net itself could not be knocked out by any single blow and there were evidently either cables or some satellites left operating, for some screens still displayed. He sniffed warily for booby traps, and used the basic energy and poison detectors from his belt, but could find nothing. Even a one-eyed kzin’s sight was sharp for monkey tricks, but who could tell how a computer was wired? Live in fear of booby traps and you’ll do nothing now, he thought. Danger could never be allowed to deter a Hero.

  He took a kzin chair, positioning himself to face the door, and keyed in “News.”

  It was slow and there were few television channels functioning. One showed a ruined kzin security headquarters. Humans in the headdresses of their “police” were dancing before the camera. No, not dancing, he saw. The heads had been removed from the bodies and other humans were waving them on poles.

  Another site showed humans, pink-naked, some leaking red circulatory fluid, cast by other humans into a cage at the Munchen Zoological Gardens. Then a vehicle drove up, doors were opened, and panic-stricken, yammering kzinretts were pushed in amongst them, slashing to left and right. Otherwise there was fire, death, buildings falling. On one television channel a short column of wounded kzin, some carrying others, shuffled away under a guard of human armored vehicles and troopers. On another were charred creatures of indeterminate species that had been too near a flash, laid out in a silent row. Other official sites and television channels simply showed the last official word, beneath a hologram of Hroth-Staff Officer and the sigil of the Patriarch: for troops, to rally and fight; for humans (programmed by loyal humans) to be calm, await instructions and do nothing to hamper the movements of defending Heroes. Cameras in the Serpent Swarm and on Tiamat told much the same story.

  Some other netcams filmed gaping vacuum, one a room opening to space where Heroes floated dead, branching trachea of their lungs protruding from gaping mouths. Monkey had a term for that, he remembered: they called it eeeting a Krisstmus-trreee. There was a scene of the wreckage of what had once been a spaceship’s bridge, evidently a major warship, with more dead and decompressed Heroes drifting and tumbling. Was one in the ceremonial garb of Traat-Admiral? Another in that of the Chief Conservator? A monkey trick?

  He keyed in various other sites: most were inoperable, or cameras showed signs of desolation, carnage or monkey celebrations. Another camera was transmitting from the bridge of a UNSN warship, clean, well-lit and fitted out, with uniformly-clad humans and bulging weapon pods visible beyond the ports.

  More monkey clamor outside. He rose and advanced to the door, his hand not on his wtsai but not too far from it. If the monkeys were hostile and had guns, the wtsai would make little difference. He flexed his claws, natural and artificial. If they were hostile and did not have guns, it would make little difference either.

  The Jorg-human and the chief of the monkey priests were backing slowly up the alley. Jorg had a gun in his hands. A crowd of feral humans was advancing upon them. They appeared to have no modern weapons but were carrying clubs and stone missiles, some in a half-crouching position that suggested to him how their ancestors might have looked when they hunted on Earth’s plains before some demon gave them lasers and reaction drives.

  They set up a howling at the sight of him. He wondered if they might throw missiles. If so, anything other than a claw-swinging charge into them would be unthinkable. Nor, he thought, looking at them, would it necessarily be suicidal. One Hero, even knocked about, could take on more humans than this. Then he s
aw two or three humans in the first and second ranks of the troop were carrying half-concealed strakakkers. So it would be suicidal. Well, that made little difference where honour was concerned.

  He dug his hind claws into the dirt, ready to scream and leap. They sensed his poise—humans of the third generation of the occupation of Wunderland tended to be able to read kzin body language—and became still. One human at the rear, who had been holding up something on a pole, lowered it very quickly, too quickly even for Raargh-Sergeant to be quite sure what it was in the smoke-filled air. Then Jorg moved and the human growling began again.

  The monkey priest (“abbot” was the human word though like many human words easier to visualize than pronounce), whom he knew and had played games with, was speaking to them, ordering them to disperse. As far as Raargh-Sergeant could gather, he was telling them to let things take their course, and not let violence now imperil the cease-fire or cause more humans to be killed.

  “Do you think I am a collaborator?” he was shouting. He had thrown back his dusty cloak to reveal some sort of ceremonial costume beneath, hung with monkey ornaments. “No! And well you should not! But I place these under my protection now!”

  “You have no power!” shouted one human.

  “I do not believe your memory is so short, your gratitude so small, that you do not remember what the monastery and my brothers did for you so recently. You took its protection for yourselves willingly enough a little while ago. I extend its protection, and mine, to these, I say!”

  That evidently had some effect. Two other humans began to jabber urgently with the one who had shouted. He finally made a head-nodding gesture. There was silence again for a few moments. Then the troop began to disperse. “We’ll be back!” shouted one. Raargh-Sergeant felt his dignity demanded he ignore the whole event. He walked to the abbot and Jorg as casually as the state of his legs would allow, aware of human eyes watching them from the shanties and alleyways. His spine crawled as he waited for the blast of a strakakker. But “Cease-fire,” Hroarh-Captain had said. Where was Hroarh-Captain now?

  “Things are getting uglier,” said Jorg. It seemed an odd statement to Raargh-Sergeant, to whom no humans were beautiful. “Things are starting to break up fast.”

  “Time,” said the abbot, “time may let tempers cool. It would hardly help to lose either of you now.”

  “They could have gone for you, too,” said Jorg. “Whatever you did for them in the past—and I think I know more of that than I should!”

  “I was aware of that,” said the abbot. He turned to Raargh-Sergeant and made a gesture that was somehow an acknowledgement of respect without being a prostration, not good enough for a few days ago. “Neither of you may know,” he went on, “but my predecessor enacted a scene very much like that in reverse, many years ago. Perhaps I had the easier part. But we might do well to get you behind some high walls. The next mob may not be refugees whom the monastery sheltered.”

  Jorg spoke urgently into his wristcomp as they walked. As they reached the monastery gates, a dun-painted groundcar with the insignia of the human police daubed on it appeared out of the smoke. The human driver got out, handed Jorg the keys and, before anything could be said to him, was gone, pelting off and disappearing down the alley.

  “Another loyal servant of the Patriarchy and government,” Jorg said, though it seemed to Raargh-Sergeant that his behavior could bear the opposite interpretation. “I’ll do a patrol, round up those I can and bring them here. Thanks to you it’s probably safer than anywhere else.”

  “You should be careful,” said the abbot.

  “I think it’s a little too late for that,” said Jorg, “and even a collaborator can have a sense of duty.”

  Three of the twelve humans who had been posted at the gate appeared to have gone, Raargh-Sergeant saw as they approached, but the remainder were still fallen in with weapons. They made the stiff, unnatural movements with them as the three approached which he realized were meant to be salutes. At least some of them did.

  “Will you join us?” he asked the abbot. “We could play chess.”

  “Thank you, Raargh-Sergeant, but I think I would do better doing what I can to calm things here, while I still have a little credit.”

  Raargh-Sergeant lashed his tail in puzzlement. He thought he more or less understood the abbot’s position in the human hierarchy—the kzin had their own priests although the military tended to respect the old warriors of the Conservor caste rather more. But he did not fully understand the ebb and flow of human authority. The abbot looked too old and frail, even by human standards, to make his authority stick, and he had no weapons, especially now when the human government seemed to be melting away. And how many loyal humans remained at the gatehouse? Nine? Or had another slipped away even in the last few moments?

  He reentered the Mess and turned on the strategic tank-display. A specialized idiot savant, it was little more informative than the internet: a few orange patches of kzinti units surrounded by the green of human. But the human-kzin fighting seemed to be almost over.

  Tail twitching, he paced and waited, watching the last of the orange lights die one by one, trying to remain coolly alert while closing his ears to the more distant sounds. He erased the Mess records, though they held little in the way of military secrets, and smashed the Mess computer, the only possible military asset in the place.

  He passed out the last meat from the refrigeration unit, telling the others to make sure that the larger bones went into the excrement turbines. A last luxury, he thought, and better disposed of before the monkeys see it.

  He heard a vehicle in the parade ground and wondered if it was Hroarh-Captain back already. But it was Jorg, the human. He brought the car to a stop near the Mess door and scurried in, going down in a quick reflex prostration under the eyes of the kzin. A kzinrett and a male kit, a little older than the one already in his care, were squalling in the armored rear section of the car.

  “Raargh-Sergeant Noble Hero, I have brought two who may be sheltered here. I think the humans will kill them otherwise. I found them wandering. You have seen that there are gangs of feral humans…”

  There was little to be done with the terrified female until she could be settled down. The kit was evidently not hers, since she let it be taken without much protest. Raargh-Sergeant’s prosthetic arm allowed him to extract the youngster without mauling, and, held in a familiar grip by the scruff of the neck, it soon quieted to a low mewling sound, arms wrapped round Raargh-Sergeant’s chest.

  “They came from the direction of Munchen with a wounded Hero. The Hero placed them in the car,” Jorg told him, “then a troop of armed feral humans swept down upon us. He placed these in my charge and went to delay the ferals while I got the car away. I did not see what happened to him.”

  But you can guess, Raargh-Sergeant thought. As I can. “Why should the feral humans not follow them here?” he asked.

  “I thought they would be safer here than anywhere else. The humans still fear to approach this garrison. And behold!” He pointed to the kit’s markings, to the distinctive red-orange blazon showing through the juvenile rosette pattern on the chest and to the ear tattoos.

  One of Chuut-Riit’s! Raargh-Sergeant realized with a new shock. Not one of those who, so he had heard, had been involved in his terrible death, but one of a younger generation. Perhaps the last of the Riit blood on the planet!

  And in my care!

  “Say nothing of this,” he told Jorg. “Get the car indoors and under cover.” It was venting a cloud of fumes from a ruptured fuel line and would go no further without repairs. The kzinrett would have to be calmed. The Trainer could do that. Perhaps when she was settled she could be placed with the sleeping suckling. If she did not kill it, her nurturing instinct might take over.

  “Courage, my brave one,” he told the kit. “The Patriarch is watching you. Have you yet a name?”

  The kit hiccuped and whimpered. “Vaemar,” it said at last, staring up at h
im with huge eyes.

  A nursery name, given by its mother and pronounced in the Female Tongue.

  “Vaemar-Riit!” he told it. He had no right to confer even partial names, let alone promote anyone to Royalty. But this reminder of its ancestry seemed to steady the kit.

  “I can walk, Honored Soldier,” it said, plainly unsure how to address the gaunt, scarred giant who held it.

  “Thank the human who saved you,” said Raargh-Sergeant. He had better start getting on good terms with the monkeys quickly. “He is called Jorg”

  “Is that its name? Does the human have a name?”

  “That is what he is called.” Jorg looked unhappy. A human who insisted it had a name, except for the convenience of telling it apart from other humans, would have had a short life and an unpleasant one a few days before. Raargh-Sergeant realized that in their last few words, Jorg had indeed omitted to address him by his own partial Name, which a few days previously would have been an equally fatal breach of human-to-kzin etiquette.

  “Thank you, Jorg, for saving me,” said the kitten in its still high, warbling voice. “I shall not forget,” it added with some memory of regal manner. Jorg made the prostration again.

  Dust particles flashed and fell in a shower of tiny jewels. A bar of green lit a cloud of drifting smoke. A laser blast shattered one of the pinnacles on the chapel tower. The brickwork of the wall erupted as shells struck it. Raargh-Sergeant recognized the coughing of one of the super-Bofors guns that the feral humans had secretly fabricated in the hills.

  A section of the wall bulged and collapsed with a roar, burying the two abandoned cars. No strakakkers yet, and possibly not even aimed at us, he thought, as chunks of rubble bounced past. “Inside! Quick!” he ordered. As he herded them under the archway and into the building, the kzinti attack car, its molecular-distortion battery’s containment field apparently ruptured, went up in white light behind them, scattering stone. He thanked the Fanged God that there had been almost no charge left. The whole monastery might have been levelled otherwise.